1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of making raw sausage by an accelerated maturing process (also referred to as “ripening”).
2. The Prior Art.
The essential trends of our culture of nutrition are settled, and the consumption of sausages several times each week is a basic element thereof. The insufficient consumption of fresh fruit and green vegetables and an increase in eating out with, at the same time, an energetic over-supply characterized the habitual behavior of the final consumers in the selection of food.
This finding has often served as the starting point of looking for realistic ways of solution for accommodating the final consumer in his consumption of sausages.
For instance, German utility model specification DE 201 12 829 U1 discloses ways of providing sausages of reduced levels of cholesterol and purine. The invention discloses preferred reduced-fat kinds of meat for the production of sausages and to substitute vegetable fats therefor. DE 42 30 434 C1 discloses a sausage suitable for long-term storage which by an addition of powdered soft cheese obtains a delicate aroma, good durability and a high optical appearance. DE 196 41 633 C1 discloses a method of producing raw sausages by adding lactic acid yields improved spreadability and color stability.
Overall, these three inventive methods exclusively disclose refinements if the product quality without, or with little, regard, however, to aspects of health.
Inventions also exist which relate to enriching foods produced from meat and fat with vitamins.
For instance, WO 90/09108 refers to minute artificial structures or “porous polymeric beads” incorporated in foods for receiving and thus protecting vitamins. After receiving vitamins, these artificial minute structures are covered by water-soluble coatings which dissolve only in heat.
Furthermore, DE 100 47 515 A1 discloses a vitamin-enriched meat product which obtains its vitamin-enrichment by a tumbling1 process of meat in a mixture of vitamins dissolved in a fluid. 1In the tumbling process brine is injected into the meat, and the meat is also kneaded and massaged (Translator's note).
European patent application EP 1,048,227 discloses meat products with complementing omega-3-fatty acids, vitamins and ballast materials aiming at healthful nutrition with a view to reaching final consumers who do not wish to change their customary nutrition.
These three approaches primarily disclose ideas for vitamin-enriching in accordance with the “shotgun principle” in order thereby to attain health of a higher value. Suggestions of natural biological processes in meat products to be produced are, however, completely lacking.